Chris Sommerich was named Humanities Nebraska executive director effective Jan. 1, 2011. He joined the council as development officer in 2004, and became development director in 2007. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where as a graduate assistant he served as undergraduate adviser and teaching assistant in the political science department. Chris achieved a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) certification in 2007, which emphasizes the highest standard of ethical and professional conduct in fundraising. He served on the board of directors for the Nebraska Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) in 2005-2011 and as its president in 2010. In 2014 Chris was elected to the board of directors of the Federation of State Humanities Councils, and he was a member of Class VII of Leadership Nebraska in 2014-15. He came to HN after four years of managing annual giving programs as development associate for Audubon Nebraska. Chris lives in Lincoln with his wife, Vicki, and two sons, Eli and Benjamin.

Kristi Hayek Carley, Program Manager, joined the Humanities Nebraska staff in October 2009. She is a fifth-generation Nebraskan and grew up on a farm south of Friend. She is a graduate of Concordia University in Seward, with a bachelor’s degree in education, and an emphasis in secondary education in the social sciences. Before joining the council staff, Kristi served as a deputy legislative assistant in U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson’s Washington, D.C., office and as a high school social studies teacher at Concordia Lutheran High School in Fort Wayne, Ind. Since her return to Nebraska, she has substitute taught in the Lincoln area while pursuing graduate studies in political science and history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and taught a class in American government at Concordia University for a number of semesters. Kristi and her husband Matt live in Seward with their son Caleb. Besides her interest in activities related to the humanities, she enjoys playing and watching a number of sports, shopping, music, traveling, and spending time helping out at the family farm.

Barbara Grant, Office and Grants Assistant, joined Humanities Nebraska in March 2012 as Program and Communications Assistant. She has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Troy University-Florida Region. She is pursuing a Master of Business Administration. She began her non-profit career at Indian Center, Inc., as trainer, and then project director. Barbara served four years in the U.S. Air Force. She enjoys reading, going to movies, playing board games and spending time with family and friends.

Dr. Erika Hamilton, Director of Literary Programs, joined Humanities Nebraska in February 2005. In 2014, she earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a dissertation analyzing the advertising of Willa Cather’s fiction. She has a master’s degree in English and creative writing from UNL and a bachelor’s degree in English and secondary education from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. Erika serves on the board of directors for the Nebraska Center for the Book and Nebraska Literary Heritage Association. Her previous employment includes two years as administrative assistant to Nebraska’s lieutenant governor. Erika lives in Lincoln with her husband, their two children, and two cats.

SheriLynne Hansen, Communications Manager, joined Humanities Nebraska in February 2013. She has more than 20 years of experience in communications strategy, journalism, public relations, marketing and advertising. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Drake University. SheriLynne and her husband Mark are raising their three children to appreciate Nebraska’s history, culture, literature and art in all forms.

Julie MacDonald, Development Coordinator, joined Humanities Nebraska in June 2008. She attended Southeast Community College where she received an associate degree in secretarial technology. She also earned a bachelor’s degree in 1999 from Doane College in Lincoln. She enjoys reading, movies, travelling, going to the library and bookstores, playing games, doing jigsaw puzzles and spending time with friends and family.

Liz Makowski, Program Assistant, joined Humanities Nebraska in April 2012. Originally from the Kearney area, she has a Bachelor’s degree in Classics and Art History from the University of Nebraska -Lincoln. She received a master’s degree in Art History and Archaeology from the University of Missouri, where she worked as a graduate assistant in the Visual Resources Center. She enjoys cooking, reading, traveling, and spending time with family and friends.

Heather Thomas, Director of Development, joined Humanities Nebraska in April 2011. She works with board members and others to raise funds from individuals, corporations, and foundations to support HN’s programs. Heather graduated from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) with an interdisciplinary major in Russian studies, with coursework in Russian language, literature, art and history. Her professional work has centered on the arts and humanities and includes three years as membership coordinator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and 10 years in development at the University of Virginia, as director of development for the University’s School of Architecture and director of development for Historic Preservation. Since moving to Lincoln in 2005, Heather was previously the education director and grants coordinator for the Haydon Art Center (2006-2011), a non-profit arts center in the Haymarket. She served as a trustee of the Sheldon Art Association of the Sheldon Museum of Art from 2008-2014 and was chair of the education committee in 2013-14.

Mary Yager, Associate Director, joined Humanities Nebraska in March 2005, bringing with her more than 20 years of experience in developing, managing and evaluating programs for the National Arbor Day Foundation. Mary has a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She and her husband, Randy, live near Hickman. They have three sons and eight grandchildren.

Susan Hale is the Prime Time assistant. She manages Prime Time in Omaha and works on expanding the program in Lincoln by reaching out to schools and other sites, armed with her passion for family literacy. Susan joined Humanities Nebraska in February 2017 with a passion for family literacy. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work and has long worked on public policies that impact underserved and disadvantaged populations. Susan lives in Lincoln and enjoys spending time with family, reading, playing the piano and working in her yard.

Privacy Policy

What Information Do We Collect?
When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.

Personal Information You Choose to Provide
We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, placing an order, requesting an estimate, or participating in online surveys.
If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.

Website Use Information
Similar to other websites, our site may utilize a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the sites visited just before and just after ours. This information is collected on an aggregate basis. None of this information is associated with you as an individual.

How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us?
Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing service and support and making available other products and services to our customers and prospective customers. Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you product and service offers are developed and managed under our traditional standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of all personal information provided by our users. You may at any time to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers.

What Are Cookies?
Cookies are a feature of web browser software that allows web servers to recognize the computer used to access a website. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by a user's web browser on the user's hard drive. Cookies can remember what information a user accesses on one web page to simplify subsequent interactions with that website by the same user or to use the information to streamline the user's transactions on related web pages. This makes it easier for a user to move from web page to web page and to complete commercial transactions over the Internet. Cookies should make your online experience easier and more personalized.

How Do We Use Information Collected From Cookies?
We use website browser software tools such as cookies and web server logs to gather information about our website users' browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our website and better serve our users. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users and prospective users.
Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our website as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our website and evaluate our website's visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you.

Notice of New Services and Changes
Occasionally, we may use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request.

How Do We Secure Information Transmissions?
When you send confidential personal information to us on our website, a secure server software which we have licensed encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. The information is scrambled en route and decoded once it reaches our website.
Other email that you may send to us may not be secure unless we advise you that security measures will be in place prior to your transmitting the information. For that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security, credit card, or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.

How Do We Protect Your Information?
Information Security -- We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction.
Evaluation of Information Protection Practices -- Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information.
Employee Access, Training and Expectations -- Our organization values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.

How Can You Access and Correct Your Information?
You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.

Do We Disclose Information to Outside Parties?
We may provide aggregate information about our customers, sales, website traffic patterns and related website information to our affiliates or reputable third parties, but this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this privacy policy.

What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information?
We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.

Permission to Use of Materials
The right to download and store or output the materials in our website is granted for the user's personal use only, and materials may not be reproduced in any edited form. Any other reproduction, transmission, performance, display or editing of these materials by any means mechanical or electronic without our express written permission is strictly prohibited. Users wishing to obtain permission to reprint or reproduce any materials appearing on this site may contact us directly.

Terms & Conditions

Donation Refund Policy

We are grateful for your donation and support of our organization. If you have made an error in making your donation or change your mind about contributing to our organization please contact us. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

Automated Recurring Donation Cancellation

Ongoing support is important to enabling projects to continue their work, so we encourage donors to continue to contribute to projects over time. But if you must cancel your recurring donation, please notify us.